At The Smoke in 2018, we had a series of short informal talks by our wonderful guests of honour. Each of them spoke briefly about a particular area of interest, and then invited questions and discussion. We recorded the talks, and although the questions from the audience didn’t come out at all well, you can hear the speakers themselves quite clearly.

• Jamie: Performance/larp – a short talk about coming to larp from a theatre and performance art perspective. We’ll explore some ways the forms developed independently and in what ways they overlap.
• Karete: Clinical psychology, and larping. Why do I sort of do small-scale roleplaying/larping with my clients? Does working as a psychologist influence the way I larp? And (how) can the brain even make sense of it all?
• Muriel: Character-based design – the specific challenges and wonders of designing female characters.
• Sue: Is there an written unwritten contract between organizer and player, and I just don’t know about it, or is it time we wrote one down? What are the chances we can agree on anything?!